


In Muted Tone

by sobakasu, sssnakelady



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angels, Canon Compliant, Demons, Disgusting amounts of fluff, Domestic Fluff, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Poetry, Poetry as a Love Confession, Post-Apocalypse, crowley has a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-28 18:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20068465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobakasu/pseuds/sobakasu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sssnakelady/pseuds/sssnakelady
Summary: Breathing isn’t of much importance to their bodies. Crowley commands focus on it all the same.In, out, one, two, again and again.Breathing is something living things do and each greedy intake of air reminds him of it. He’d watched Aziraphale’s chest rise and fall too, the desperation in his eyes hidden behind his glasses. They’d enjoyed a bottle of wine on the way to Crowley’s flat, sat close on the bus so that they were touching from hip to knee to heel. Neither of them talked of it. Talked of anything much at all, but the solid presence against his leg had let him know he wasn’t alone.It is roughly ten thirty PM on a Saturday night.The night that Armageddon didn’t.They are three bottles of wine in and Aziraphale is rambling.





	1. In the Nightingale's Soft Call

**Author's Note:**

> This is adapted from a roleplay we did. 
> 
> The poem's mentioned in the story are In Muted Tone by Paul Verlaine and How Do I love Thee? by Elizabeth Browning.  
This is just two idiots trying to be in love while Crowley has a panic attack by spouting poetry at one another.

* * *

Breathing isn’t of much importance to their bodies. Crowley commands focus on it all the same. 

_ In, out, one, two, again and again _. 

Breathing is something living things do and each greedy intake of air reminds him of it. He’d watched Aziraphale’s chest rise and fall too, the desperation in his eyes hidden behind his glasses. They’d enjoyed a bottle of wine on the way to Crowley’s flat, sat close on the bus so that they were touching from hip to knee to heel. Neither of them talked of it. Talked of anything much at all, but the solid presence against his leg had let him know he wasn’t alone. 

It is roughly ten thirty PM on a Saturday night. 

The night that Armageddon didn’t. 

They are three bottles of wine in and Aziraphale is rambling. 

The world hasn’t ended and the person, the entity, his _ everything _ he cares about is still here. Once they’d vacated the bus Crowley had let them into his flat. From there they’d consumed two more bottles of wine and Crowley has been listening to Aziraphale complain for a solid half hour about the lack of anything worthwhile to nibble on. 

Crowley’s home is bare minimum. Sleek and new age, sure, but it lacks any personal flair. Other than the plants that litter the hall and the statue that Aziraphale had paused to look at before continuing on, there is little that is personable. Maybe the chair. He does like his grandois chair. There’s no need to worry about the chair. 

Not when he is _ drowning _. 

_ So breathe _. 

Kick to the surface, struggle for air. In and out, he can do this. 

The problem is they’re not touching anymore. Aziraphale has taken to pacing. Into the kitchen and out again, while Crowley is trying not to be so obvious with his watching. He needs to know his angel isn’t just going to disappear on him again. 

He still smells of ash and smoke. His clothing reeks of it, but his skin does too. Down to his very bones, his marrow. Every inhale brings that smell of fire. Of burning books and brimstone and he’s just trying not to choke on it. He leans forward to snag his wine, takes a sip of it and tries to look casual - not like he’s trying to wash the taste of hell from his mouth that will never, ever leave him. 

Aziraphale is still speaking. He can hear the other’s voice like a chime - a song - but he can’t understand the words under all the water trying to fill his lungs and the fire invading his senses. What will come of them tomorrow? Neither Heaven nor Hell will let them go. They’ve ruined too much, broken too many rules. How many more can he break before his final judgement? How many more words will Aziraphale say between this evening and non-existence? 

He needs to focus, needs to listen. These are likely their final moments and he needs to _ do something _, but he’s burning from the inside out and drowning without a life vest. 

He’s stopped breathing. 

A hand on his shoulder snaps Crowley to alertness, his own hand coming up. Sharp nails dig into flesh but that song is in his ear again and his hold loosens until his hand just rests there over the other’s knuckles. Aziraphale’s voice, his blessed voice, is saying his name. 

“What?” Crowley questions, lifting his head. When had he lowered it? 

He’s prying his other hand from his hair where he’s been pulling at it. This too he hadn’t realized. He slouches at an angle on the couch, lifting his head and giving Aziraphale a lazy grin that he doesn’t feel. He’s still got his glasses on. 

“Sorry, angel, got caught up in my head for a second. Something about apple chutney? We could order in. Is it too late for that?” He wonders aloud, checking his watch. 

He frowns as he notes the time and the fact that his hands are shaking. 

There’s no need to be such a mess, he has certainly lived through worse, hasn’t he? _ Falling _ was worse. Falling had been agony - damning and eternal. There was no comparison to Falling, no worse heartbreak. Or was there? It has to be a blasphemy to think anything could be worse than that - but fuck _ her plan _ . Fuck _ ineffability _ . Fuck _ the world _ . What the hell should he care for any of it if he’d been about to spend it _ alone _? 

“My dear Crowley, that was nearly a quarter of an hour ago and it’s far too late for take away now.” Aziraphale tells him, gentle, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “Are you quite alright? You seem - out of sorts.” 

Crowley blinks. It is a forced action, a righting of his vision, centering himself back in the present. They’re here, not _ there _ , not past but _ present _ . He needs to stay focused. Needs to _ breathe _. He inhales and the smell of smoke fills his lungs again, makes him cough only once where he tries to pass it off as though he’s just clearing his throat from embarrassment. He pats Aziraphale’s hand and shakes his head twice. 

“Right… right, that’s - “ What are the words he needs to say? 

His tongue tastes like a furnace instead of wine. He moves to reach for it again and notes with a scowl he’s emptied his glass. 

“M’fine. Ship shape. Where’s the wine?” He insists, asks, _ pleads _. 

He doesn’t want Aziraphale to question him. Doesn’t want to put words to this fear and let it be born again into the air around them. This air that stinks of sulfur. Aziraphale is watching him, concern painted on his face. 

“Crowley, you’re not at all ship shape, my dear.” His angel informs him with the gentleness of a mother telling her child their prized fish has gone on to a better place. 

“I think we’ve quite had enough wine, don’t you? Without anything to nibble on that much wine is sure to just be sour after a while.” Aziraphale adds, that hand still lingering on Crowley’s shoulder. 

Crowley runs a hand through his hair, wonders if he’s gotten all the ashes fully out yet. Maybe they’re still clinging to the product he likes to slather in his hair. No more, he thinks. No more hair wax and spray. Maybe he’ll grow his hair out again instead. Will there be time? There’s no more time. He should have run off to the stars like he said he would, then he’d have just a little more time to do all the things he still hasn’t done. 

Except Aziraphale wouldn’t be there, so what was the point of that really? What was the point of living in a world with no light? Only darkness. It is too dark in here. 

He snaps his fingers, the fluorescent bulbs growing brighter and buzzing with the extra work they’ve been forced to do. 

“Wine, angel. We need more wine.” He declares, shifting around until he’s taking up more space on the couch, waving one hand over the back of it. 

Aziraphale follows Crowley’s backwards motion just enough to gently cling to the demon’s waving digits. The touch feels almost reverent. 

“Perhaps we should - take it easy for a bit, hm? Discuss what we’d like to do next. Now that there’s no fear of the world being destroyed immediately.” 

There is a sputter, indignation, slander on Crowley’s tongue but he swallows it down. Hurting his angel on their last night isn’t his goal. It sits rotten in his gut - rotten as a plague. He never wants to watch hurt cross that face again or steel those bright eyes. He’ll take a million punishments to know Aziraphale will never have to suffer even one. 

He has to work those words off his tongue, rubbing it against the roof of his mouth since there is no wine presently in his glass to wash them down. No, he isn’t alright, but why did Azriraphale have to _ say it _? Give it form and make it so he can’t run away? To slither under the soil and maybe hibernate the decay off. 

He thinks, briefly, of the garden.

Of the rich soil there. How it was warm on his scales and smelled of life. Aziraphale still smells like that - like that first time. As if the angel has woven the Garden into his very being. Crowley’s Garden. He’d helped create that - and then he’d helped destroy it. Humanity has long since forgotten the bliss of the Garden, but Aziraphale wears it like a cologne and Crowley just wants to make a nest in the heart of him. 

Crowley’s mind spins in circles and then crashes downward, wrenched from the Garden and the stars twinkling above it. Back onto Earth and the present. To the _ now _. He swallows and his fingers grip hard onto Aziraphale’s own. 

_ Destruction _. That was what awaited them. 

“Gonna have to… be a lot drunker for that kind of conversation, angel.” Crowley says, turning long limbs down to the floor, moving to stand and fetch the bottle himself. 

There is a moment, the both of them not wanting to let go. He can feel it, nearly gives in. Their fingers brush together too long before parting and Crowley has to swallow to survive the rush of loss when the contact breaks. Still he lets go and moves for the kitchen, catching the stems of both glasses in one hand. Aziraphale stands there as if bemused by this behavior, observing with quiet confusion, but allows him to go. 

“Bring me another glass as well, then, my boy.” 

Aziraphale sighs then and takes over the place on the couch Crowley has vacated, stilling his frenetic pacing. Yet he turns in Crowley’s direction, like a sunflower following the brightest star. There is a little slip of paper burning away in his pocket that Crowley does not yet know about. Meaning upon meaning to be sussed out. 

Crowley knows he needs to shake this feeling. This gloom and doom settling over him. Or is it not quite that? It’s certainly part of the problem, but he drastically doesn’t want to think about the root of it all. He passes into the kitchen, setting the glasses down near the wine bottle and reaches for the neck of it. His fingers are trembling and his attention can’t remain in focus. His eyes dart behind black frames to scan the kitchen. 

It’s barren but for the wine, the glasses, and a book. He’d forgotten about the book, honestly, in all the discourse. A slim thing with a worn cover that he knows is filled with poetry. He’s read it. Though he’ll say otherwise he’s read it front to back a dozen or so times and asked the empty air what it means. Cinquains, ballads, sonnets ; professions of love on every page. Aziraphale had left it out once, some years ago, and Crowley had noticed it while at the shop. He’d borrowed it without asking and if Aziraphale was the wiser on this he’s never said a word. 

Crowley had taken to reading it again after the disastrous attempt to coerce his angel into fleeing with him. He’d put it out of his thoughts after and there it sat now like an open confession. The only remaining book from a place Aziraphale had loved. He doesn’t realize he’s moving for it until his hand touches it’s cover, sweeps over well worn corners from both himself and Aziraphale too. A hundred ways to profess one's love in a single book that Crowley has read so many times and yet he’s no closer to telling his angel how he feels than he was six thousand years ago. 

_ He can’t _. Not ever. 

How could he break their hearts that way? When they’re out of time and when he knows - _ knows _ \- Aziraphale will smile sadly at him and tell him it’s not part of _ Her plan _ ? They’re an _ angel and a demon _. They are not made to love each other. 

His eyes sting, burn like the smoke is assaulting them too, making them water. He has to take his glasses off to get his fingers at them, digging a thumb and knuckle into their corners. He won’t cry. He won’t, but he thinks he already is as a few drops catch on the book’s cover. Oh, they’ll stain. 

There is wine, there is company, there is _ tonight _ and that has to be enough. It has to. 

_ It isn’t _. 

“Need a hand?” 

Crowley straightens, shocked stark and still at the sound of the other’s voice too close. His attention had waned, allowed him to be snuck up on, and he reaches for his glasses. He can’t bear to be looked at right now. Dashing away any remains of evidence from a cheek with a palm. He shakes his head and slides his glasses onto his nose while Aziraphale’s eyes have fallen to the book on the counter. 

“Ah, yes, I meant to ask about that. I’d wondered where it had run off to. I do occasionally lose track. Wherever did you find it, Crowley?” Aziraphale asks, something both fond and sad wrapped up in those eyes as the angel lays a hand on the cover of the book. 

Crowley has paused mid action with his glasses, the frames hanging on the end of his pointed nose, held there only by a single digit. His golden ringed eyes are wide, but before he can answer his angel spouts poetry to him. 

“Let us blend our souls as one, hearts and senses ecstasies, evergreen, in unison with the pines vague lethargies.” The words flow, effortless as if Aziraphale has just re-read the piece fresh in this instant. 

It is hardly the first time Aziraphale has ever quoted poetry. Crowley has heard many words from the angel’s mouth, but nothing has ever sounded so near to _ song _ . Nothing so reminiscent of _ romance _. He has imagined many entries from this book in that voice, read to him like a night time prayer. Maybe with his head on Aziraphale’s knee and the angel’s unoccupied hand in his hair. Secret desires never to come, swallowing around the pain of what is missing and what was never there to begin with. 

“Crowley, my dear, please won’t you tell me what’s the matter?” 

_ He can’t say it. _

_ He musn’t. _

But a storm pounds against his floodgates to leave him rattling apart from the inside out. They’re out of time. Will he meet his end holding this secret? 

“Let us yield then, you and I, to the waftings, calm and sweet. As the breeze-blown lullaby sways the gold grass at your feet.” The words spill like a thousand confessions, none of them truly his own. 

And what he is trying to say is ; _ You are that breeze. And if you are the breeze I am the grass. Tread on me, lie on me, wile away the hours atop me until I’m crushed and only know your shape anymore. I am telling you. I am screaming it in technicolor, but don’t make me say it out loud. _These words that can never be taken back. 

There is a catch of breath in his angel’s throat, and Aziraphale is stepping around the counter to stand directly in Crowley’s space. Hands raise, lower those glasses and pluck them away. Crowley lets out a small, aching sound as his means of hiding is stripped from him. He doesn’t want Aziraphale to look at his eyes. Not only because he loathes their shape, their color, their very meaning, but because they say too much. They are still wet with the threat of tears and ringed with unspoken fears. But silent desires too, baring him clean to his bones, like a snake skinned for sport. 

Aziraphale touches him then, just a curious thumb, but it’s scalding against his skin, branding him deeper than hot coals. He doesn’t breathe. Air is caught in his lungs and he’s drowning again but this time it feels like he’s being shoved under, unable to breach the surface. 

“Gently,” Aziraphale starts, whispers, cutting off the space between their bodies, and Crowley wants to scream _ no, you can’t, we musn’t _ but it’s already too late. 

“Let us steep our love.” 

The pad of Aziraphale’s thumb is on his mouth, brushing his skin with a tenderness Crowley knows is reserved for only the oldest, rarest of books. Or the spilled drop of an exquisite vintage. 

Crowley can’t speak, can only stare. Not even a breath passes his lips and his mind races with _ it can’t be. _

“My dearest Crowley. My dear, Let us steep our love. Let us blend our souls as one.” Aziraphale continues forward and sings into the space between them. 

Crowley feels as though he has never been so _ blessed _ in all his life. Not even when he’d been an angel. 

The next sound he makes is a cry, too complicated in it’s making to hold just one emotion. It speaks his surprise, his distress - his hopes, dreams, fears, agony, _ everything _. It is everything in a single sound that is muffled by a kiss. 

There is no holding back this flood. Not when the dam is built of twigs and straw. Of pebbles and soft earth that were never meant to hold up to such strain. He weeps and kisses his angel back like a man drowning. 

_ Let us steep our love _, Aziraphale asks and he responds. 

_ Yes, yes, yes. I will be the water. I will be the fire too. Be my evergreen, my pine, my black oak. Be the leaves I settle into, brewed together until there is no beginning or end to us. _

Hands frame his face, the sweep of a tongue against lips, begging them to part. There is an answer, an echoing cry that’s risen from his angel’s throat, spilling between them like a prayer. Like a benediction. Root to leaf, air to whirlwind, water to simmering. Changing, steeping liquid becoming forever altered by the touch of one another. How long have they been involved in this process? How long since they had begun to blend and form something new? Something precious and pure, and dare he hope perfect? 

It started with a Garden. 

Crowley _ breathes _ finally. Intakes air through his nose and is thrown back to a time - to a moment - with the smell of earth and roots that cling to this angel. It calms the frantic, desperate, terrified thing clawing at his heart and makes it beat solidly for what feels like the first time. 

They are still in that garden, it has never left them. For they are its trees. The soil, the lush fruit, and the sturdy stone. The Garden had been for lovers. The place that had birthed that feeling in all its abandon and he’s understanding now what that feels like. To love without boundaries, without uncertainty or fear. He has loved Aziraphale for six thousand years, this is true, but he has never let himself live in it. 

His hands raise, grip tight into the front of Aziraphale’s suit to bring him close. He kisses him back with a trembling need, breaking away only enough to take another breath, sucking air, scent, and desire into his lungs. He can’t sense love, not any longer, but he can sense greed. Lust, gluttony - if it’s a sin he can _ taste it _ in the air and his angel sets his tongue to watering. 

And while he can’t sense love he can still _ know it _. 

It is in this kiss. In the way Aziraphale is holding his face in tender hands. In the way they can whisper poetry, and in the way they’re trying to consume as much of one another’s space as possible. His answer to that question posed in poetry is there in the way his voice breaks on a plea. 

“Don’t leave me again, angel.” 

_ Not tonight, not ever. Not in a million years, eternal years. I’m nothing without you. _

Aziraphale closes his eyes, leans in to pepper gentle kisses over Crowley’s cheeks, nose, eyes - kissing away every tear he can seemingly find. 

“My darling, never. Never again.” The promise is made with a fervent tone. As if Aziraphale means it with all of his heart, his soul, his ethereal essence. 

It is a lie. 

His angel can do that, after all, lie. Ever with the best of intentions, but Crowley thinks it a lie nonetheless. Tomorrow looms and he is so certain it will take all of this away from him. Everything he has ever, ever wanted has been torn from him and he knows this will be no different. His angel lies to him and it’s alright, because Crowley keeps secrets. Two sides of the same well meaning coin. Tonight he’ll gladly live in those lies, in secrets they don’t dare speak because at least they’ve said this much. They’ve made it this far and so help him he wants to revel in this knowledge. 

In this answer to his most pressing questions.

_ Why was I made? What am I here for? What do I do? _

The answers are all here, in front of him, holding him close and whispering promises of love. 

His hands finally loosen their anchor on Aziraphale’s coat. Smooth it down and continue on until he can hook an arm around the other’s waist, draw him in close by that point of contact. He wants to feel the lines of their bodies pressed in tight. Like their legs had been on the bus. He catches Aziraphale’s lips again, licks into that mouth with need and want. His kiss is hot, damp, brimstone mixing with wet earth and his nerves settle a little more. It’s easier to speak now in the space between one kiss and the next. 

“Let me tempt you. _ Tempt me _, I don’t care. Anything. Anything you want, tell me. Just spend tonight with me. Let me hold you.” 

_ Let me love you _. He can’t say that yet, but it’s still there in the way he is all but begging. 

“Yes, dearest, yes - anything. Everything. You have all of me.” Aziraphale breathes between kisses. Once more setting his lips to every inch of skin he can get to. 

There is a choked sound that Crowley makes then. It’s caught in his throat and has a rasp around the edges because a realization comes to him in those words. Deep down he’s always known this feeling. This concept of _ possession _ . The _ need _ to possess, to own and capture. Crowley prides himself on his control over his needs. Always keeping them hidden under slithery grins and flippant commentary. He is infinitely more careful with the things he claims as _ his own _ because he knows without a shadow of a doubt he will consume it to every last speck. 

His plants as an example. Held to such impossible standards because they are things of life. While some can last a considerable amount of time they are all still a victim of the life cycle and will eventually die. To love something that will die is the cruelest nature and so he doesn't love them. What he does is reminds them that they are meant to be beautiful. They must flourish for him but they must also be punished. As he is punished every day too. The snake and it’s garden. The bringers of sin to humanity. 

This is different. This is _ allowance _ and he doesn’t deserve it. Knows how he doesn’t deserve to have even a piece of this angel. Even a brow, or a tongue, or a heart. He deserves none of it but Aziraphale has offered them up to him on a platter of gold and he’s never been hungry before in his life but suddenly he’s _ starving _. His hands come up, clasp around Aziraphale’s face to make certain they are looking at one another when he speaks words that lacerate his tongue with their truth. His own endless evil. 

“I will ruin you, angel.” 

He means it as a warning, but instead it sounds like another plea. 

_ Let me hollow you out, build a home in you. Accept me, accept me please. All the world, all of Heaven and Hell can dismiss me and I will bear it. I will bear all that weight gladly so long as you’re mine _. 

“Crowley -” 

Aziraphale’s voice hitches, and there’s hands running through Crowley’s hair, curling through it and gripping onto the short strands with finite attention. 

“You could never, my dear. I’ve belonged to you for _ centuries _. Have you ruined me at all? We balance each other, always have. I dare say we always will. A little bit of Heaven, a little bit of hell, and entirely the Earth’s in the end. Me a bit of tarnish and you a bit of shine. It’s quite poetic, isn’t it?” 

Crowley’s heart does a balancing act between them, traipsing over thin wire that he can only pray doesn’t prove barbed beneath his bared feet. He always feels like this. As though every time he finds some purchase under his heels he starts slipping, teetering sideways and _ falling _ is a feeling he loathes most. But Aziraphale has whispered more answers to his never ending questions and he hasn’t even had to ask. Speaks the words Crowley most wants to hear and his only means of reply is a broken sound as his angel shatters him to pieces and then rebuilds who he was - who he is - maybe even who he’s supposed to be. All up into the mess of Aziraphale too. 

“How do I love you? Let me count the ways..” Aziraphale sighs, leans in for another kiss and Crowley chases it with a few new tears glistening on his cheeks. 

Finally he’s able to set his feet back down onto warm soil. 

“I love thee with a love I seemed to lose.” Crowley sings back, and he knows Browning too. 

He knows Yeats, Whitman, and of course Verlaine who started this descent into love and madness. He knows them, but most of all he understands them and why humanity remains enchanted by their words centuries later. Most of all he knows this one like his own skin - like sinew. It is famous enough that is is likely Aziraphale has quoted it precisely for that reason. 

But Crowley hides secrets under his skin, under scales and tucked close to his heart. 

He’s had his hand in many great events throughout human history, but this still remains a rare, precious gem to him. 

“I knew her, then. She asked me what I thought _ yearning _ was, so I spoke of you. Of an angel made of paraffin and the sun. She penned that soon thereafter.” 

And maybe he’d done his own little miracle to see it gain fame - for it felt like his too. _ His confession _. His love the greatest secret the whole world had heard but never really knew. 

The cooing noise his angel makes is worth the spilled secret. 

“_ Oh, my dear. _ Anywhere I go, you go, my dear. And whatever is done only by me is your doing, my darling.” 

There is an impish spring to Aziraphale’s smile and words and Crowley is rewarded with a return on his secret. 

“You aren’t the only who who bent a poet’s ear. What a pair of fools we are to pine for so long. If only I could have found my courage sooner. Perhaps you needn’t have suffered so.” Aziraphale moroses. 

“What do you want of me?” 

Crowley asks then, unbidden. Not only just of the now, but of tomorrow and the next day, and forever. They likely don’t have this and maybe knowing will be agony. Yet he thinks not knowing and facing an ending tomorrow would be worse. He wants to know every way Aziraphale wants him, needs him, desires him. He’ll likely make promises he can’t keep. 

His angel wears a smile that is infectious, that stirs in him great emotion he can’t escape when met face to face with it. Reminiscent of a time in a ruined church with some books. Those books are gone now, but that smile is still here. It reminds him, calls to him. Tells him that _ yes _ , that was a moment precisely as he’d imagined. When Aziraphale had looked on him with love. Perhaps had _ fallen _ then, so to speak. Or maybe it was before then and he simply hadn’t noticed. Perhaps it had been a slow thing for his angel. A _ float from grace _ instead of a fall. Oh how Crowley knew he had fallen that day in the Garden. It had hurt just as badly as the first time, but still it had filled him with forgotten emotion. 

“Tell me what I can do.” He pleads, thumbs sweeping circles over soft cheeks. Lips to lips and yellow searching blue. 

How can he save them? And if he can’t, how can he make their last night everything? Would She be so cruel? To give them only this handful of hours before destruction? _ Yes _ , he knows. She’s done so to her humans for thousands of years. Ripped their lives from them in their prime. What would a rebellious angel and demon mean to Her? _ What was Her plan? Why couldn’t he see just enough of it to escape this? _ In the beginning all he had ever wanted was answers and in the end this is still true. More than answers all he wants now is to love this angel before him in all the ways humans can love - and in all the ways they can’t too. 

“Love me, Crowley. I want all of you, my dear. Every moment, every second of you. I want to know what you taste like. To see your expression when you wake and when you sleep. To know what you dream.” 

There is a kiss between Aziraphale’s one speech and the next, so infinitely tender. 

“I want to indulge in you. In all the ways humans indulge in their lovers. To learn the very shape of you in ways I haven’t yet and for you to do the same with me. I want dinners at the Ritz, quiet teas at home. With your lovely plants and my books all taking up the same spaces. I want nothing more than _ everything _, Crowley.” 

There is another kiss then and how many more will they get? How many more can he steal and have stolen in the hours between now and then? A kiss isn’t an answer, but maybe it’s a prayer. Aziraphale speaks in soliloquy and Crowley listens with rapt attention as though it is the most intriguing play he has ever bared witness to. 

It moves him. 

Aziraphale moves him as nothing else in existence has, but maybe that is not entirely the truth. This angel moves him like creation had, before. When he’d woven stars into being and green into barren land. He’d been an astronomer, a sculptor, and a gardner. She had given him the gift of creation and there is nothing he misses more after his fall. Now before him is a chance and it makes the most dangerous emotion of all swell hot and uncontrollable in him.

_ Hope _. 

Or is it _ faith? _

The two emotions are so close, so similar, and he’s lost the ability to tell the difference. 

“Be mine, Crowley, and I shall be forever yours.” 

Aziraphale speaks his desire, his longing, and Crowley can only pray silently for all the time he needs to make every wish his angel dreams of comes true. That longing is mirrored in his own eyes. Six thousand years of it and he wants those things too. 

Lazy Sunday mornings, sweet words of coaxing to get him to try some new treat. Dark wine and Aziraphale’s voice in his ear reading him books - poetry, epics, whatever. He wants that shared space, his jacket tossed atop Aziraphale’s own when they return home for the theatre. He wants two cups on a table, one always half full where Aziraphale has forgotten it as he loses himself in a book. He wants the space beside him in their shared bed filled with his angel’s scent. His skin, his essence, so Crowley can roll into that spot and soak Aziraphale in long after the other has risen to make himself breakfast. 

His hands are framing the other’s face, their eyes still gazing upon one another. There is only honesty there in his own. The sickly yellow of them vulnerable and open. 

“I love you.” He says, because they’ve only admitted it through poetry - through prose - and he wants to say it like humans do. 

This expansive emotion held in a delicate heart. 

“_ I love you _ . I love you. Fuck, I love you too much. Haven’t you - didn’t you - you realize, right? You must have from the first moment. The second you told me what you’d done, on the gate, what you’d done for them. I was _ gone _ , couldn’t be brought back. Not ever. I’ve always been yours, angel. I’ve been _ waiting _.” 

To be noticed, to be remembered, to be _ loved _ again. He’s been waiting for so long, but it’s worth it. For that look in Aziraphale’s eyes it is so worth it. 

“I had no idea.” His angel confesses. “For so long - oh, my dear - I am so sorry I made you wait.” 

The words are sincere, even gently mournful. 

He leans in, eyes sliding closed, their mouths brushing with each word he whispers there. 

“_ Unmake me _. Rebuild me into what you need.” 

It isn’t that he wants to be anyone else, not precisely. It’s just that he only wants to be everything Aziraphale wants. Has always wanted. He’s only a demon, barely worth the time, but for some reason Aziraphale see him, loves him, and he wants to do this right. He’s cocked up so many things, but he can’t do that here. Not tonight. He needs to be lead, to be told and shown. He needs to know he is only doing absolutely everything Aziraphale wants. 

“You are already _ everything _ I’ve ever wanted, Crowley. I wouldn’t change a thing about you because then you wouldn’t be you, and I love you, so very much. This is what I want, what I need from you. Be my dearest demon and stay with me, always.” Aziraphale says, pressing into him as though he can somehow twine their two physical forms into one. 

_ Do you know I’d wait an eternity for you? _

His eyes say the words his mouth isn’t speaking. It’s not waiting that is the pain of it all, though there has been some brought on by longing. The pain is in the rapid ticking of time they don’t have. The slow motion of knowing they may have wasted so much in trying to figure this out. Yet had they really? 

The inevitable had been today, proposed of today, that end of the world. They’d known all along the supposed end result and yet they’d dallied. Or perhaps they’d been building something. Slowy, tediously building a foundation solid enough that not even the Almighty Herself could break them. He likes that idea way better than the thought they’ve wasted their time. This doesn’t change to puzzle of tomorrow. What will become of them if they can’t slot these pieces just right? 

His mind winds in circles and then stops, puts forward the attention needed for the emotion demanding release. 

_ Unmake me, _ he’d asked of his angel and that is exactly what Aziraphale has done. His brows furrow, a sharp mouth prone to frowning as much as laughter wavers on the edges. Serpentine eyes glisten with more unshed tears. He can feel it, like his bones are shifting. Muscles changing and his very being forming to settle into precisely what has been asked of him and it _ hurts, _but in that way that is one casting off doubts they have built their world around. 

Fears he has clung to in order to survive slides off him like old skin and he’s stepped into the warmth of the sun. It smiles and kisses him as though he were meant to be there in it’s radiance all along. More than that, he believes it. For the first time since Falling he believes. 

“I will.” 

It’s a promise given on a growl, through his teeth as though he is warning heaven and hell both. Maybe even everything in between too. He will fight to keep that promise. 

He kisses his angel again because there is nothing more he can say. He’s made his statement loud and clear. This is what he wants, where he wants to be. This is who he wants to be with and he will wage war for it if he must to keep them together. 

Aziraphale is leaning into that kiss, winding his arms around Crowley to tug him down, turning the intent into a ferocity as poignant as any poems spoken between them. 

“And I, Crowley, will stay with you. _ Always _.” He whispers between each touch and go of their lips. 

“_ Enough talking _, angel.” Crowley hisses. 

They’ve done enough talking. All the important things have been said and there is a force beneath his skin that demands action instead. He wants to kiss his angel for every single time he wished to and never did. He wants to touch every inch of skin, map it out. Every atom of the other and then take him apart by what he’s learned. In that primal kind of way yes, but in that way only their kinds know too. That ethereal kind of way. He wants to love Aziraphale not only with his words, but also with his hands, his teeth, his sighs and moans. 

“Shall I tempt you?” He asks, teases, still somewhat pleads. 

There’s a sharp tilt to his mouth that is a smirk. He wants permission, and while he isn’t quite sure what he’s going to do with it once he has it, there are a few ideas. Or maybe too many ideas, but he tries to focus on the first one. On peppering kisses along his angel’s skin, over his jaw. Long, bone thin fingers trail over a pale column of throat, dipping under the collar there. Aziraphale grips onto the front of his shirt as though he intends to rip it clean off him and Crowley has to physically bite back a whine. 

“Oh, my dearest, please do.” 


	2. Let Us Blend Our Souls as One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows his angel. 
> 
> At least, he is pretty confident that he knows his angel. Down to every bespoke suit he’s ever loved. To how he takes his tea, what his favorite foods are, and even what face he makes when biting into a Baba au Rhum from the Dorchester. 
> 
> When Aziraphale makes what anyone else might consider an offhand comment about a little cottage tucked away in a certain quaint little town, Crowley is paying attention. 
> 
> It takes effort, though minimal really, to snap the daily paper from Tadfield into his fingers. Aziraphale likes to check the news for strange occurrences, ever vigilant toward the goings on of a certain anti-christ. It sits there, glaring at him, this little cottage of potential.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Crowley buys a cottage for two and they speak more on the subject of love. 
> 
> This chapter is a bit shorter but there's a lot more dialogue.  
It's just the two of them being utterly sappy.

* * *

He knows his angel. 

At least, he is pretty confident that he knows his angel. Down to every bespoke suit he’s ever loved. To how he takes his tea, what his favorite foods are, and even what face he makes when biting into a _ Baba au Rhum _ from the Dorchester. 

When Aziraphale makes what anyone else might consider an offhand comment about a little cottage tucked away in a certain quaint little town, Crowley is paying attention. 

It takes effort, though minimal really, to snap the daily paper from Tadfield into his fingers. Aziraphale likes to check the news for strange occurrences, ever vigilant toward the goings on of a certain anti-christ. It sits there, glaring at him, this little cottage of potential. 

  * \- 

He pops over one afternoon, intent to give it a personal look on his own. It has need for some renovation, certainly. A bigger parlor, an extra room just for Aziraphale’s books, and a far more modern kitchen - for his own liking too. It’s just a few small alterations to reality, no one has to be the wiser. 

Nearly no one. Aziraphale might notice, perhaps. By the time he’s come and gone thrice Adam knows, pleasantly teasing him on it. Furnishing is next, this is the most tedious part. He has to find that in between. Not too old and stodgy as Aziraphale’s tastes run, but nothing too modern and flashy either. There must be a proper compromise that can still be considered _ chic _. 

It takes several weeks of shuffling things around. Pulling from past and present, maybe even a bit of inventing something into being, but when he finishes he thinks he’s managed it - that in between. The kitchen has all the latest technology, but the counters and cabinets are a dark oak. Plants dot every corner and window, with the ones Aziraphale favors closest to those comfort spaces clearly meant for his angel. 

Everything looks perfect, feels perfect, now he just has to figure out getting his angel here without upsetting him. Aziraphale doesn’t always enjoy the thought of being left out. Normally this isn’t like him, he genuinely enjoys having his angel about for everything, but he wants to give Aziraphale something. Just from him, from this side of creation in him that has never truly left him. Something that will make Aziraphale blush and level that dreamy smile he adores on him. 

He’s so caught up in this vision that he’s forgotten the important fact of the matter. They haven’t yet _ agreed _ to move in together. They’ve made their confessions, and while Crowley all but lives at Aziraphale’s shop for the time being there has been no greater discussion on combining their spaces. 

It is the absolute worst time to rush into a panic over this when Aziraphale is stepping from the car and onto the cobblestone walkway. Crowley has an extensive history of screaming internally while looking very put together on the outside. He’s doing that now as he moves around the Bentley to stand beside the other. He has all the words he can think of to ease this forward sitting on his tongue, yet instead what he manages is a dramatic flare of his hand coupled with a cocky tone of voice. 

“_ Welcome home _.” 

Aziraphale has taken to just staring. At the cottage, over to him, and then back again before he repeats the words. 

“Welcome...home?” His angel looks baffled at first, but there is a glint of eagerness that takes hold. 

“Crowley, what’s all this?” 

Crowley is a being of movement and exaggeration. When his anxieties fester and boil they mingle with his excitement and the more hopeful feelings - creating a toxic response of sputtering, flailing, and forward motion. This extends into an arm, which he circles around Aziraphale’s shoulders to not quite forcefully guide him forward. He’s unwilling to wait a second longer to show off his hard work. 

“Yes, yes, angel. _ Home _. Come on now, in we go. I’m quite ready to listen to you bitch about the interior decorating.” He says with a grin, something like a dare in his voice. 

He feels like he’s gotten it all just right though. In the event something feels misplaced or wrong to the angel, well, he’ll just fix it. 

“I’ll be glad to get the rest of your books over finally. Transferring them here under your nose is a task and a half.” 

Aziraphale doesn’t quite stumble, but he notes it’s a close thing, and those bright blues have gone wide as they enter the cottage. 

“I - you - my books? The rest of them?” His angel’s voice comes out a little weak as they step unerringly into the parlor. 

“Not _ all _ of them, Aziraphale. We’ll have to leave some behind so you can keep pretending to run a bookstore.” Crowley teases, letting his arm slide away so the other can peer around unfettered. “Just your favorites. Couldn’t move those without you noticing.” 

There are shelves in the parlor sporting volumes in a much more decisive order than Aziraphale would ever be known for. There are signs of Crowley’s inhabitance in the cottage as well, mostly confined to the kitchen and the upstairs bedroom. There is also a particular statue from his foyer that has been turned into a charming fountain in the backyard, visible through a window. Aziraphale has taken to touching things with that same bemused stare as he follows behind. 

Everything on the lower floor comes first, but as they ascend the stairs the first surge of real trepidation settles in. He hasn’t thought to give them seperate beds. Why hadn’t he thought that? Perhaps because he’s gotten used to sleeping in the one at the shop. There is a guest room, of course, but it very clearly speaks of its purpose. Homey but minimal, whereas the master bedroom is large and lush. Singular bedded that’s begging to be lounged upon until mid morning hours. 

He thinks he can pass it off as his own if he needs to. Aziraphale doesn’t really sleep, whereas Crowley does so nearly every night. There is a headboard with shelves, hidden compartments, and little nooks for drinks or a midnight snack. The closet has about thirty sets of the same, precise black suits Crowley wears. There is also the softest of throw blankets folded on the edge of the bed in what Crowley knows to be Aziraphale’s favorite color. 

He leans in the doorway, his expression visibly soft even behind his glasses. 

“My dear Crowley… it’s absolutely lovely.” There is sentimental emotion in that voice, and Aziraphale reaches over to rest a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “You did this for us, Crowley?”

“Sure. Well, mostly for you. Is this what you wanted, angel? It is, right? I mean, I still have my flat. I can just -” He’s becoming aware that this is not the right time to get self conscious about everything. 

He _ had _forgotten to ask. 

As he stammers over himself Aziraphale is moving, placing a single finger to that blabbering mouth. 

“My dear, it’s absolute perfection. There’s just one thing. When were you intending to tell me you were in love with me?” 

Crowley blinks and flusters, not even able to hide it behind his token sunglasses. _ What a cheeky son of a _\- 

“It’s all through the cottage. Every item you’ve picked out for me is radiating such a deep, pure love.” 

Demons can’t sense love. He’s had no idea the energy he’s infused into each carefully thought out gift. There’s a complicated emotion there but it’s mostly settled into baffled embarrassment. 

“Oh.” He sounds dumb even to his own ears. 

At least he hasn’t gotten anything wrong. His mouth quirks at the corner. 

“Can’t sense things like that. You can replace ‘em, that’s fine.” He says with a wave, putting on a brave face at the same time because in a way this feels like a bit of self deprecation. 

He’s moving to gather up the throw blanket, the thing Aziraphale has been pointedly staring at. His angel makes an expression like he’s popped his prize balloon and surges forward at him as though he’s been taken over by some covetous panic. 

“What? Crowley, no. If you do anything to that blanket, I’ll - well I don’t know what I’ll do, but it _ will _ be _ drastic _.” There is a brief tug over the blanket before Crowley lets it go easily. 

“It wasn’t a complaint, Crowley, just an observation. I love it. I love everything about this place. It’s perfect. Even better than if I’d done it myself. _ Thank you _.” His angel is pink cheeked and all smiles. 

Aziraphale is smoothing the throw back onto the bed, Crowley’s eyes on it now as he ponders the whole thing of it. There’s still something that he doesn’t quite understand, calling up the other’s words between kitchens and poetry. _ I had no idea _ . Even Adam has told him he wears his love for Aziraphale like a _ bedazzled jacket _. Loud and too bright, forcing everyone to see it. How can Aziraphale of all beings sense it in these trinkets, but not in him? 

“Shouldn’t you have felt it? All this time?” He wonders, trying to grasp onto the bigger picture. 

Aziraphale returns to him, reaches up to slowly slide his glasses from his face and tuck them into his jacket pocket. Quickly he feels like he’s steered this on toward the wrong course. His brow furrows, two sharp lines that mirror his confusion. 

“My dear, demons are not supposed to love. I never felt - well, I’m not sure now.” His angel tells him, worrying that impossibly soft lower lip. 

“Demons supposedly can’t dream, do holy miracles, or create weird pocket dimensions either, but I have.” He points out in turn, his eyes searching. 

He knows what he feels. Knows that it is a real thing, so why can’t his angel sense it? His fingers curl around Aziraphale’s wrist, drawing him closer until their noses brush. 

“Do you think you might have been ignoring it?” They’ve both ignored many things over their existences. 

There is a hushed moment between them and Crowley tries not to let the seeds of doubt plant themselves in his heart. This is not a feeling he has made, constructed into being of his own wild imagination. There’s just no way. They both feel it, in some capacity, it is _ there _. 

“I’ve looked. Believe me, I have. There is nothing I’ve wanted more for centuries. I’d always thought it one-sided. Why can’t I sense it?” The question breaks his heart, as much as he is sure it has done the same to Aziraphale for ages. 

He doesn’t like this other feeling he is creating in them now. This negative thing and enough is enough. He presses his forehead to a temple, brushes sharp angled knuckles over a cheek and whispers in the scant space between them with hope on his tongue. 

“Close your eyes, angel. I don’t know how this all works, but if you spent so long thinking I couldn’t love you - maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places? Or something. I have it on good faith that I exude enough of it that a certain little brat has threatened to build a swamp in the backyard because it will make things _ smell better _.” 

He dares to lift a hand to sniff at his wrist, just in case. It smells like brimstone and this hint of pine. What if love has made him stink, though? What a terrible song to bounce into his head at a time like this. He wasn’t even responsible for that one. Maybe he should have been. 

“Does it have a smell?” He wonders aloud and Aziraphale is covering his mouth with a hand to silence him again. 

His angel closes his eyes in compliance, seemingly intending to focus. When those eyes snap open that gaze is unfocused, punctuated by a soft gasp. He’s being grabbed by the front of his jacket now, tugged into a firm kiss, and he’s made an undignified squawk in between. 

What Crowley doesn’t know is how large that aura of love is. So breathtakingly expansive with Aziraphale at its very center. They’ve lived so long in tandem this way, from the beginning. 

He has some questions, but this particular course of action is of great interest to him. He slips a hand along a cheek, uses his hold there to tilt his angel’s face so their mouths slot soundly together. He can feel the jolts of electricity racing from his lips clean down to the tips of his toes. 

Aziraphale breaks away after a moment to beam rose colored up at him. 

“Oh, Crowley. It’s beautiful.” That voice bubbles over with happiness. 

“I could never feel it, so I thought, why ruin a good thing with sentimental feelings? Oh, how I was wrong - and this cottage! Crowley, it’s perfect. You are perfect. I wouldn’t change a single thing.” 

“It’s all yours, angel.” He assures. 

He meets the next offered kiss while trying to speak around it, the two of them bumbling over one another. 

“I’ve been working on this _ feeling _ for about six thousand years, one would think you’d have noticed by now. Woe is me, in love with a _ nitwit _.” He hisses, full of humor and complete with a wrinkle of his nose. 

“Now, really. I’m the nitwit? It isn’t my fault you seem to be the _ only _ demon in all of creation who can still experience love - but _ oh _. Oh, it’s so lovely, Crowley. I really don’t know how I missed it.” 

Crowley grins. It’s a bit too wide and maybe a touch idiotic to be properly mischievous, but the sentiment is there in the way he wags his fingers between the both of them. He’s slinking toward the bed, running a hand over that throw blanket when he gets there. 

“Ah, but now I know the secrets to getting my way. I have a house full of stuff to hold ransom on you.” He declares, snagging the blanket and throwing it over his shoulders as if it were a cape. He knows it looks positively stupid, but still he manages a puff of pride in the way he holds his frame. 

“When you droll on and on about accounting and fine literature I can threaten to burn stuff.” 

He won’t. Not ever. 

Still, it is fun to torment Aziraphale from time to time. He is still a demon under all the unnatural things he can apparently do. His angel is laughing, those eyes crinkling at the corners. 

“Well then, if you do that I’ll just be forced to go about naming your plants, won’t I? And telling them how lovely they are. How well they’re growing.” His angel steps forward, drags him down to leave a kiss on the end of his nose. 

Crowley is grinning now, wide and with a certain abandon. It is just them. There are no sides, no immediate fears. Just the two of them, the world, and this cottage to make their own. He is barking out a laugh, pulling the blanket around to drape it over Aziraphale, drawing the other closer by it. Until they are touching from shoes, to knees, to chest, and nose. 

“Name them, then, but you’d better be prepared for the responsibility when one slacks and it’s wood-chipper time.” His threat is entirely ruined by his soft smile and the way he can’t stop brushing their lips together. 

When Aziraphale chuckles it is a rich sound, warming through him like a fireplace. 

“I’ll just have to distract you before you manage it then, won’t I? I will not allow you to torment the darlings, Crowley.” His angel informs him in that mock-severe tone.

“They are _ my _ plants and I will torment them as I like when they fail to meet my expectations. Don’t press your luck, angel.” He warns. 

He’s being compromising enough, he thinks, letting Aziraphale name and pamper them. They have to know there is still a clear threat in the air or the whole lot of them will start acting up like rebellious teenagers. 

“By the by, I forgot to ask. Got caught up in the details, but would you like to move in together, Aziraphale?” For once he feels rather confident in the answer he’ll receive. 

“I would love nothing better, my dear.” 

And it isn’t until Aziraphale completely agrees with this crazy idea he’s had that he feels a weight slough off. His legs wobble briefly and he presses his face into Aziraphale’s shoulder. He’s dragging the blanket over both their heads next in an attempt to hide himself. 

“Thank the lor - thank sa - _ thank whoever _. Fuck. That’s out of the way now.” He’s about at the limits of his emotional capacity. 

He doesn’t even need to see to know his angel is rolling those beautiful blues at him, but Aziraphale is pressing a cheek to his hair too. 

“Indeed, I agree entirely, my dear. It’s been a long time coming. My, but aren’t we both a pair of nitwits?” There is another chuckle, a kiss to his temple, and those arms tighten wonderfully around him. “Oh, my dear. I’m going to enjoy our little world we create.” 

And there will be evenings together. Wine, music, chatting about anything and everything. Morning tea with crumpets and Crowley with sleep tousled hair. Shoes by the door, a dark jacket only set upon a hook because his angel can’t stand to see it wrinkle where it’s been tossed upon a chair. A gentle life of everyday miracles, and some other worldly ones. 

For this is a story about creation. 

About the _ love _ that is born from it, even in demons too. 

  
  
  



End file.
